WHATS THE DIFFERENCE: SLC VC MLC?
Flash memory stores information in the voltage levels of transistors and is nonvolatile because those levels don’t require power to maintain. Traditionally, digital information storage, including SRAM, DRAM, and early Flash, stored information by toggling each cell between TWO states; a neutral and a charged state; this is a single-level cell (SLC) design. In Multi-Level Cell (MLC) flash, each cell has a neutral voltage and 3 levels of charged state, for a total of 4 states capable of storing two bits of information. This scheme allows more data storage per transistor—and is much cheaper. However, reading more finely differentiated voltages requires finer measurement, which is in turn slower and more error-prone. And – reduces the usable life of the Flash. So SLC is superior in terms of write-performance and lifecycle and priced accordingly, but lower-cost MLC has been catching up on both fronts and is currently dominating the rising SSD segment reaching consumers. The Intel X25-M 80GB
